It's been 8 months since a motorcycle accident where I suffered from a Left Frontal Contusion, and a Right Rear Sub-Arachnid Hemotoma,(two brain injuries) and broken ribs, torn shoulder ligament, nerve damage to my leg and ruptured lung, had to be revived on scene and spent a while in the hospital

The first couple of months following the trauma, I was fine. Everything was ok. I was gonna live, and I was like Polyanna. Just happy to be here...But:

For the past 5 months I've been chronically crying daily, and weekly inconsolably crying, depressed and living with chronic anxiety. The doctors released me with a stamp of "excellent recovery" after 3 months, and a few weeks later started noticing those symptoms and they have become increasingly worse since. Not better. I thought "this too shall pass" and I was wrong. Some times it is so bad, I just want to lay down, sleep and never wake up. That's a very scary thought... I've started seeing two psychotherapists per week in the past month to try to figure out what is going on. One Psychoanalytical and one Behavioral / Cognitive.

The depression and anxiety are... amazing. I wake up in it, I live in it, I go to sleep in it. I can't stand mornings. My mind is going before I even wakeup, and I can't sleep well. I literally wake up in a state of panic and anxiety. I can't work, manage my relationships, or do much of anything. My sense of reality is off. I'm paranoid, scared, sad all the time. I think that the people that love me, really don't. I think that I'm ruining everything all the time. I don't think I can "do it" whatever it may be(activity, social interaction etc..) I hate this and I can't talk myself out of it. It's real in that moment. So real it's really scary, like schizophrenic scary.

I don't know how to handle this. I was never like this before. I'm not a crier, I'm not out of control emotionally, I'm a fighter, I am a doer, I am proactive and ... not anymore. I'm constantly fighting with the image of my old self, superimposed on the image of myself now. It's like this monster in me was born in the accident and she's got control over me. Did she exist before and was hidden and the trauma has now given her power? I hope so, otherwise I'm crazy and there is no help.

I'm scared.I feel that this has beaten me. Is this TBI or PTSD or both? The TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) doctors say it's definitely Post Trauma and prescribed me Zoloft, which I refuse to take. They say it's good for PTSD and Anxiety. What about fixing this without drugs? Is that possible?

Do I just need talk therapy? Do I need meds? I HATE the thought of taking anti-depressants. I hate the thought of drugs at all. I refused to take pain meds in the hospital. Ok, yes, that's a bit extreme, I know, but it's true and I spent the next two days in intense pain, but after that, my body's endorphines took over and fought the pain and sped the healing. I'm a firm believer in the bodies ability to heal and manage it's levels. UNTIL NOW. Is the brain so different?

I'm constantly asking myself: "What is wrong with me? How do I fix this?"

So I thought I'd just dive in with my introduction. Thank you for reading this. I hope there is some sort of help for me. I'm scared.

Welcome to the forum DesireeStar.

Thank you.

Hi DesireeStar and welcome to the forum. I was in a horrible car accident and have minimal brain damage that effects my memory. I already had PTSD prior to the accident, but I believe it took me about a year to feel back to normal (not the normal before the accident) The normal I was going to ever be after the accident.

Try not to beat yourself up over it. My GPA is not as good as it was prior to the accident, and I have learned to live with it. Comparing myself in pre and post car accident does me no good in dealing with the other issues I have.

It would be a good idea to focus on getting educated on your illness so you can feel better, instead of comparing what you once were, to how you are now.

Hang in there
Tammy

As I was reading your post I felt like I was reading something I wrote because of many similarities in the way you are and were feeling. Just a little intro about me, I was in a drunk driving accident 12 years ago, when I was 19 and my friend that was driving and a girl I was with at the time were both killed, and I was as close to death as you could get without dying. I had to be flown on flight for life to the nearest high level trauma center, after they had wrapped me up and put me on an ambulance and then realized there was no way I would live to see the hospital if I didn't get there quicker.

After I arrived at the hospital and began examining me they found plenty wrong. I, like yourself, had severe brain damage, and most doctors thought I would have severe problems with my brain for the rest of my life. Obviously since I am writing this today they were wrong. I also had my left leg below the knee completely amputated at the scene of the accident, and as time went on they bone and tissue at the end of the leg kept dying until they discovered a major artery had been damaged and no blood was getting to the lower part of the limb, so they ended up amputating the leg above the knee. I had also broken my left femur, my right ankle bones and bones in my right foot (they were broken so much that in order to repair it they needed to take a muscle from my stomach to do a muscle graft onto it, and skin from my thigh for a skin graft over it, so it wouldn't need to be amputated as well), my right tibia and fibula were broken, my right femur, my right clavicle, my right scapula was shattered in multiple places, my left upper arm was broken, my jaw, and my skull was cracked open. I spent about 3 months in the hospital spending most of my time relearning how to do just about everything, especially walking.

Like yourself for the first months, and even years, I was OK with things. Well maybe OK is overstating it, but it really didn't bother me. But as time went on I began to get more and more irritated and annoyed (for lack of a better way to describe it), especially from the pain I continued to be in, especially the phantom pain. I was rarely sleeping and most of the time the only way I could sleep was by drinking a few beers. I didn't want to say anything to the doctors about the pain I was in because I felt they would not believe me, or think I was nuts, since when it came to the phantom pain there was nothing there to hurt. So as the pain got worse so did I emotionally. Finally after about 4 or so years I talked to the doctor about it and got on pain meds and Zoloft, which they said helps with nerve pain as well, and finally got the pain down, so I could begin to sleep and actually function mostly normal during the day. Like yourself at first I didn't want to take the meds and was afraid since you always hear about the bad side to them, but trust me there is also a very big good side to them as well. I highly recommend at least giving the meds a try, I know my life has done a full 180 because I can now sleep and get up in the morning not wishing I was dead because I used to think that was the only way I could get out of the pain, both physical and mental. I hope this helps, but you have to be the one to make the decision, since everyone has there own opinion and feelings towards how to deal with different life events.

Thank you so much for your posts. This helps a lot since I am dealing with not only the effects of the post trauma, but the TBI, and physical limitations as well. I am seriously considering the Zoloft. I told myself I would give it another month before I took it, and next week I will revisit this and see how I feel. My Psyche keeps telling me I am not crazy, but I am not sure I believe him, so I should probably listen to him, eh?

I've talked to a few people and they all say that Zoloft helped them, so that makes me think I might give it a shot for a few months. The docs say 6months and coupled with therapy and they'll wean me down off of it. I'm inclined to try it. I'm so tired, it's amazing. Thank you again, for listening.